Google Moves Into Fashion

Google's new Web site and virtual designer boutiques are set to launch Wednesday.

Google is venturing into fashion with a new Web site and virtual designer boutiques, set to launch Wednesday.

The fashion world is abuzz with talk about the venture, according to sources who have been briefed on the search giant’s plans.

Anyone will be able to create and share their own personalized shop by selecting style preferences and the looks, brands and items they love — in the end making it easier and more stylish to buy fashion on the Web.

The search company has tapped Sarah Jessica Parker to set up her own personalized shop and is reportedly wooing Katie Holmes to do the same.

Oscar de la Renta, Tory Burch, Cynthia Rowley, Marchesa, Isaac Mizrahi, Tracy Reese and Erin Fetherston are some of the big names Google has invited to set up their own virtual stores on the site, although shoppers will most likely also be able to draw on a huge variety of fashion brands for sale online to stock their virtual shops.

Visitors will not actually complete a purchase on Google, but will click through to a brand’s online store or a retailer who carries the item, such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Barneys New York, Net-a-porter or Yoox.

Google executives declined all comment on the site, which is being unveiled Wednesday and celebrated with a party in New York that night at Skylight SoHo.

The new site, dubbed — for now — Boutiques.com, is part of a bigger trend toward new retail formats that the Internet and social media have made possible. At its most basic level, the new fashion site will function much like Google Search or Google Shopping under the covers, but the part visitors will see will look like high-end, personalized luxury boutiques — an environment and approach to search and shopping that is more appropriate, efficient and appealing to fashion lovers and designer brands than Google’s existing options.

On top of that, the site will also incorporate elements of entertainment, gaming and social media, and a way for participating brands to tap into that to drive even more traffic to their sites.

Fashion community Polyvore and fashion search engine ShopStyle offer similar functionality and a stylish look, although they do not use the boutique metaphor. They are two of the biggest nonretail fashion sites on the Web, with about 1.6 million unique visitors a month each, according to Google Analytics. Both sites let users assemble looks from around the Web, share them and click through to other sites to buy.

Also new are fashion games on Facebook and MySpace, such as Zynga’s “Fashion Wars” and Sugar’s “Retail Therapy” game, that let users stock a virtual boutique with virtual clothes, then click through and buy the real things in an online store.

With Google’s huge amounts of traffic, its new fashion site could potentially be even more powerful than similar existing ones.

It was not clear at press time how Google intends to structure its fees.Potentially, it could charge click-through fees or a small cut ofactual sales to its brand and retail partners with boutiques or whosupply Google with a data feed of their products. Which partner storesusers see could depend on their style preferences, clicks or searches,not unlike the ads users see today when they do a search, although in avery different form.

Google or its partners could also offerusers who create shops on the site incentives such as points, rewards ora small affiliate fee if someone purchases an item in their Web store,as do other fashion communities such as Chictopia, bookmarking sites anddistributed retailers such as JeffSilverman.com.

Boutiques.comwill allow Google to better tap into one of the biggest-selling andfastest-growing categories on the Web — apparel, accessories andfootwear — and hedge against the growing threat to search that socialmedia and distributed retailing pose. Next to simply typing in a URL,search is the biggest driver of traffic to retailers’ sites, closelyfollowed by e-mail marketing, but social networking sites such asFacebook, Twitter and Polyvore are rapidly gaining ground.

Byappearing on the site, brands and retailers have the potential to drivegreater amounts of traffic to their sites, which hopefully they can thenconvert into buyers. In addition, it gives them a way to layer gaming,entertainment and social shopping on top of their Web stores, even iftheir own e-commerce platforms do not support them.

Google isnot currently an e-tailer, but it does offer a shopping cart widgetsimilar to PayPal called Google Checkout. Potentially, it could offermobile and local shopping tie-ins to its Android phones and apps,connections to video bloggers and other shopping-related video onYouTube, and use visual search technology from recent acquisitionLike.com.

EBay has recently moved to take better advantage of the popularity of fashion on the Internet by creating a separate destination on its site for fashion, complete with special shops for brands and exclusive collections from Narcisco Rodriguez, Norma Kamali and Derek Lam.

Sears and Wal-Mart have third-party marketplaces — not unlike Google’s new shops — in which other brands and retailers can display their wares on Sears and Wal-Mart, even though the transaction is completed at another e-tailer’s site. Amazon and eBay also run marketplaces, but checkout happens on their sites. However, except for eBay, they have not been designed specifically to display fashion.

Asked why Google’s project is more compelling than eBay’s forays into fashion, the executive of a fashion house said, “It’s Google. Isn’t that a lot sexier than eBay? It’s true that eBay has been exploring this area and tried some different vehicles through exclusive relationships. Google owns the world — it owns YouTube, Gmail, and it’s a different platform than eBay.

“We have very successful online relationships with full-price and off-price retailers and sites such as ShopStyle.com. It’s an exciting area,” he continued. “Really exciting things are happening on a daily basis. In the long term, consumers are going to be shopping in a different way. Where is that all going to fall out in 10 years? It’s incumbent upon us to be open to and explore new areas. In the business sense, the brick-and-mortar business is not growing by leaps and bounds. It’s become more of a market share question.”

Latest Galleries

FREE ALERTS & NEWSLETTERS

Social Studies

In yet another fashion show shuffle, @elleryland is moving its show in sync with the Paris couture calendar — though the brand is still keeping one foot on the city’s ready-to-wear schedule. Their runway show in January will coincide with the launch of a new strategy: designing two main collections each year instead of four, which will then be released in four drops. “As we all know, the system needs to change. We need to show sooner to give time back to artisans and designers to do what they do best — create,” said founder Kym Ellery. #wwdnews #wwdfashion (📷: @kukukuba)

@maxmara’s classic 101801 coat was the cornerstone of its pre-fall 2018 collection. The design team expanded the traditional double-breasted, kimono-sleeved style into a trapeze coat, lean belted styles and a peacoat and presented them in monochromatic looks – like the camel one pictured here. #wwdfashion #prefall18 (📷: George Chinsee)

The @cfda has shifted the dates of #NYFW, with Men’s showing on February 5 through February 7, and Women’s will directly follow, running from February 8 through 14. The preliminary schedule will be released on the CFDA’s web site in the next few days, but Mark Beckham, VP of marketing for the CFDA, revealed that @rafsimons will be back to close the men’s-specific part of the week with a show on February 7 #wwdfashion (📷: Kelly Taub)

@ferragamo is introducing a new space dedicated to the development of women’s and men’s leather good samples. The laboratory, which is created eco-friendly materials and designed to reduce the environmental impact of the manufacturing processes, will allow the company to expand its accessories offering through traditional artisanal approaches. #wwdfashion (📷: @aitorrosasphoto)

How does a “regular, degular, schmegular” girl from the Bronx, N.Y., become a Grammy-nominated artist with a certified platinum record in less than a year? Call it the @iamcardib come up. The 25-year-old has become a musical sensation, and the fashion world is taking note. “If I could describe her style I would say drama. She’s really into the dramatics,” says Cardi B’s stylist @kollincarter. See how Carter styles her bold and out there looks with the link in bio. #wwdfashion

“There is no formula. There is no guideline. I can watch Ted Talks all day, but there is no one who can advise me on exactly what it is I should be doing,” said @ronniefieg, CEO of @kith, in an interview with WWD’s @ariahughes at the brand’s new SoHo office in Manhattan. Head to WWD.com to see how Fieg went from hanging out in shoe stockrooms at 13 to building his own business. #wwdfashion (📷: @weston.wells)

@fearofgod and @maxfieldla have teamed up on a pop-up installation. The store, located in the gallery space across from Maxfield’s Melrose Ave location, is the site of the brand’s House of God pop-up in which Fear of God founder @jerrylorenzo has created a church-inspired installation. A dozen vintage church pews sit in front of an LED screen playing 90s gospel singers in an effort to re-create an environment akin to a Southern Baptist Church, Lorenzo explained. Read more about the pop-up on WWD.com #wwdfashion (📷: Jennifer Johnson)

Known for his sleek, sophisticated American glamour, Norman Norell is the subject of an upcoming exhibition at @fitnyc. “Norell: Dean of American Fashion,” which runs from February 9 through April 14, will feature approximately 100 ensembles and accessories. His best work is exemplified by the designer’s glittering “mermaid” gowns frosted with thousands of hand-sewn sequins – like the one pictured. (📷: William Helburn) #wwdfashion

For pre-fall 2018, @balmain didn’t let go of the glitz. A crystal embroidered baseball jacket priced at around $40,000 hangs in the “couture” section of the brand’s first men’s pre-collection. Sporting the words “Balmain Army” across the back, the item took around two months to make. “When it was completed, it was like Christmas, it was like, ‘It’s done, it’s exactly what I wanted,’” said Balmain’s creative director @olivier_rousteing during a tour of the collection in a Paris showroom on Monday. #wwdfashion